BAWorld - The Business Analyst Blog

Recruitment Strategy for Hiring Business Analyst's from Campus

2011-09-17T03:56:00.000-07:00

This post should help the organizations who are planning for their next campus recruitment's

Being in the Business Analyst role and have groomed and seen many BA's, following are the five traits which a ideal candidate should have.

Listener
Team Work
Out of the box thinking
Interpersonal skills
Adaptable
Hardworking (Of course with smartness )

I wouldn't use this post to explain each of these traits, as we all are aware of what they mean. However i would like to emphasize on the techniques to identify whether each of the candidate you select possesses those skills or not.

Usually in India during campus recruitment's, some aptitude test followed by a group discussion is used to filter the students. I totally believe in this model, where in you can filter out the people by finding the best out of the all.

Having said that, i believe its not easy to judge someone in a 30/45 mins interview and say that he/she is the ideal candidate.

Here are few techniques which should help the Employers.

Management games - I have gone through one such game during my campus recruitment (don't remember what the game was called)where there were some 10 people with some assignment and the idea behind the games was to see few things, like how well you are recognized in the team, whether you are a follower or a leader ? and the most imp thing is how well you understand the situation (of the game) and identify the strengths of every one at that moment and delegate things.

I believe minimum of 2 such games with the candidate being in 2 different teams with all different people would help the employer to identify who is more flexible and adaptable with others and most important is problem solving skills.

Functional Discussion - This interview should be more of a discussion where the interviewer should act as Business sponsor, who wants to build an application. He should ask the candidate on any one real time application (eg: Railway Reservation, ATM machine, Internet banking) which most of us are familiar with and talk about it. Interviewer should pose questions in a manner where the candidate's real strength comes in to picture.

Example, you would get to know whether the candidate has such IT mindset or not, whether he can think or not. Does he has problem solving ability or not. Is he asking enough questions? or he is just assuming ?

Extra Curricular Activities - This is one more important attribute which should help the employer in identifying how the candidate is. No matter what that is, the focus should be on how sincere is he towards that. How much knowledge the candidate has and how much of time/effort he puts on that extra curricular activity.

Dinner - After filtering candidates based on such criteria, I think its a good idea to take them out for Dinner, here again i believe its a good medium to see how the candidate is in person, how much ambitious is he ?. Is he a nice guy ? How well he behaves or would say the Rapport he builds, not just with the employers but also with the other candidates who are out for dinner.

Sun Sign - Well i wouldn't be shocked if after reading this his you don't believe with me on this, but i have seen people with different persona's who justify this role, they are smart , they are vocal , they are good team worker, they are favourites of their colleagues.

Here are the list of sun signs who i believe justify to this role - Virgo, Aries, Capricorn, Scorpio & Libra.

Now you may think that if these are the people who have all this qualities, then the biggest task for the employer is to sell themselves to the candidates and make them believe why they should join them. They should be open to talk about how the role will shape and whats their career path in the organizations. This would help the ideal candidate in making the career decisions.

I hope this post again helps my readers and the prospective employers in finding the right candidate.

Should a Business Analyst look in to the Code ?

2010-12-27T01:14:00.000-08:00

This is a very debatable question whether a Business analyst should look in to the code or not.

I have seen both the sides of this role, being as a pure functional BA role and the other side with Techno functional

Actually it all depends on your employer or to be specific the clients/ project demand.

Let me tell you what does a Functional BA would do.

1. Interact with client and other stake holders
2. Scoping and drafting the business requirements (including change requests)
3. Converting to high-level functional requirements
4. Use cases, Screen prototype design, etc etc ,
5. Test scenarios
6. Functional testing etc.

In this role there is a certain dependency on Techies. You would chase them to check if the feature exists (could be technical – something like batch jobs), understand certain feature behavior in the software. You would do these when there was a customization or when there was no documentation

Now see the tasks of a Techno Functional BA.

1. Interact with client and other stake holders
2. Scoping and drafting the business requirements (including change requests)
3. Converting to high-level functional requirements
4. Look if the feature is a new if not check what has to be enhanced for the new request
5. Debug and find out the behavior of a feature
6. Identify at higher level what needs to be done, what all code is getting affected and what needs to be created/enhanced (it could be a procedure, batch, triggers, database or a screen)
7. Techno functional BA would be able to write a Technical Spec giving insight to the Developers on what to be done.
8. Use cases, Screen prototype design, etc ,
9. Test scenarios
10. Functional testing etc.

Most of the times it is the Comments in the code which helps how a certain code file is behaving, where the data is flowing from and what all entities in the code / database is getting affected. When you don’t have comments you would debug and understand the feature and make a note of it.

Now you may ask which of these two roles is better or best. I would say both are good. One should see both the sides and looking at the code is not going to hurt your career.

If you look in our industry mostly it’s the Techies who have moved in to the BA role, and they have become Product Managers. On Other side domain experts have seen the Technical side and that’s why they have become important asset to their employer and now they are not replaceable

So next time if you are asked to look in to the code you know what you are going to gain :-)

Requirement Gathering by Gap Analysis – a Agile Approach

2010-05-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

What will you do when you have strict timelines in finalizing a product/application for one of your processes? Probably this exercise can help you in finding out whether the product/application can meet your requirements.

Background:

Client had a strict guideline where in they wanted a XYZ application to be configured an d installed in 5 months time. 2 and half months went in RFI/RFP. Client did all the due diligence, checked the features and rated high to one of the vendors and the vendor turned up for a demo.

Remember now Client has just 2 months left to get the application running.

Now with these strict deadlines the best approach was

Inviting vendor to turn up for a few days workshop where it would take you to all the modules and show the entire workflow.
To have a moderator (probably a very senior/experienced person) to take care for smooth execution
To bring all stake holders at one place i.e.

          o End users
          o Business / Process Heads
          o Business Analyst’s (of all the applications which this XYZ would interact)
          o Process Heads
          o Audit teams, and all possible stakeholders.

A Interactive session among all stake holders for smooth execution (Remember interactive session may also lead to distraction by way of clashes among business heads/users. something common to see)
The users and the core team with the business heads would turn up to identify whether the product/application meets their requirement and also identify the gaps so that they can jot down and later come to conclusion (to go with this application or not)
During discussion all stakeholders will get to know about all possible interactions of the application with other applications in the system.( To give an example, The client might need customer/agent details from ABC application ) That’s where the BA’s of the respective Applications/ Teams will be of great help to give insight on how their system would behave and what will be required to make this application running from their side.
At the end of every session Business Analyst of the team who is getting XYZ application will have points or the Gap’s, which he would translate in to high/detailed level business requirement?
At the end of this exercise all the stakeholders will have their work to be done. Eg: Processes team will work on getting a new process or modification of the existing process. The Other BA’s will work on the time lines and solution design for a smooth interaction with the XYZ application.
Also the vendor team will list the Gap’s noted /identified by the Business and tally with the BA from the client side. The Gap’s noted will help him to give timelines on getting them in to the system. Based on priority both client and vendor can work on which Gaps will be filled in the first phase and will also discuss on the other phases.

Hope my experience helps you too in your assignments during this tight timelines.

Some UML Videos

2009-09-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Came across some very good videos on UML,USE Case

Use Case Basics

Creating UML Use Case Diagrams

Introduction to UML

Business Analyst Career Path 2.0

2009-04-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

This is in continuation and a add on of my earlier post on Career path for business analyst. I strongly believe Career is like your Portfolio of investments and like the way you regularly keep a tab and re balance your portfolio, even a career requires the same amount of examination of your skill sets so that you can maximize your returns from your career and reward yourself.

With the Recession season around you will also agree with me when I say that now there is no concept of ideal employer where in you stay for ages and retire there. This post is my endeavor to make you look at the possible opportunities available and also to move you out of your comfort zone and take up the challenges.

To give wider perspective to the readers, a BA can see himself working in 4 types of organizations Check Post, experience of working in all types of organizations performing different types of role will add advantage and will help to see yourself moving in your career with clear defined milestones.

IT Business Analyst

As a Business Analyst in his/her first few years of BA career should work in these 3 major types of organization.

IT services Org.
Product Org.
Client Org.

A BA should look forward for adding following skill sets for a span of 5-7 years

IT services Org. – BA Responsibilities, Domain Knowledge , Client Knowledge , Pre Sales
Product Org. - BA Responsibilities, Domain Knowledge , Sales Knowledge, Product Designing,
Client Org. - BA Responsibilities , Domain Knowledge , Client Knowledge

Check your BA competency Score

Sales/BD Role

In fact it is also recommended to take up Sales/BD role for some time in IT Services/Product co. BA knowledge is limited to giving solution for the detailed requirements (mostly in an IT services Org.) However, Sales knowledge will help you hone your skill sets in targeting, convincing and selling them the solution to the client.

Insight

As said earlier you need to be smart enough and rebalance your portfolio of your skill sets from time to time , since each organization works differently going forward these skill sets will help you to see yourself in leadership roles.

Sr. /Lead BA /SME

As a BA when you move ahead you can see yourself in   Sr. /Lead BA or a Subject Matter Expert (SME) role. Remember Responsibilities is just a mean of achieving an objective, by this time it is expected you learn lot of Product and Domain knowledge. In Later years after having sales experience it’s advisable you stay for some time in Client Org. You will actively help Sales team with solution approach and more information for client presentations.

Process Consulting

After adding lot of domain knowledge it’s wise to diversify in terms of responsibilities by adding supporting knowledge around a domain (at least for 3-5 years )

For example

1.       Processes knowledge – Six Sigma, ITIL and CMMI (can be made use in IT /Product Org.)

2.       Regulatory /Compliance - Eg: SEPA, BASEL 2, SWIFT (from banking can be used in banks and IT Org)

3.       Framework knowledge

Having done all this you can take up Business Process Re-Engineering work, help clients decide on the best practices, Improve their Business functions by providing them with valuable inputs and helping them making the best use of the Technology.

Insight

Remember it’s your career and you are sole responsible how you shape your career. I strongly believe in adding value to one Resume no matter how the market is. Staying at one place for ages i.e. in a comfort zone can become a liability during a recession where in you will get stuck at one place or you end up taking pink slip. Although Pink slip is not so common for BA’s as they will always remain Asset for any project/ product, but one also need to remember that you are at mercy of your Client, if the clients pulls away his contract you can become scape goat and end up taking Pink slip. So my advice is to diversify and constantly keep adding skill sets and different product knowledge of a Domain to your   Resume.

From here you should take up these roles

1. Product Management

I assume that you have got solid domain knowledge by this time having experience on different products of a solution segment, here from a SME role you will move to Product Manager role where in you constantly talk to clients and in house Sales team which will help you to build vision about your product and also will help build strategies where you want to take this product. Along with in-house research which you and BA’s under you would be doing. You will give inputs to your BA’s who will refine these requirements and see to it that they are incorporated.   Here you will also publish papers, case studies for the organization and give interviews about the future of the product with the changing market dynamics.

2. Vendor Management

Having seen you taking requirements, giving solution to the requirements, and little bit touch on Sales with solid product and process knowledge it would be a very good career move to take up vendor management role in a Client Org. This role will require you to identify the need of the business and help them in choosing the right S/w Product. This role would require to float RFI/RFP’s check the bids made by the IT co.’s Since you also have Sales knowledge here you would like to hear from the solutions team(BA’s from Sales Org.) who actually understand the product. Sales team will arrange a demo and BA’s/SME and Tech architects will present the solution. Now It would be in your hands to whom you award projects. Here you will be continuously interacting with CIO, CTO’s of different organizations from here you will build solid rapport with the Industry Veterans which will help you move ahead in your career.

From here you may end up moving to Consulting Role or CTO role or maybe both in a sequential manner

1. Consulting

Spending some of the best years in the industry by adding experience in different stages of a complete cycle of BA to Vendor management. You can help Product Co.’s , IT Services Co. as well as Business/Client Org. to help them with their needs as a freelancer. This might be a contractual work but you are not bound to be an employer of any one org. You are in more demanding position as you have solid industry experience and can do contractual work and making lot of money.

You can also end up moving to Consulting Organizations like McKinsey, PWC. Or Research Companies like Gartner, Forrester and then you may end up moving in to Investment Bank/Private Equity firm (assuming you understand market dynamics, also understand how this industry works) helping their client by advising on M&A activities and lead their business units with your knowledge.

2. CTO

Yes the company may promote you to be the face of the organization in a IT Services co. Or you can become a CTO for a Business/Client Org. laying road maps for the future IT needs of the Organization. From here you may move to board members or probably see yourself as a CEO :)

Conclusion:- This was just a model career path, you are free to use it the way you want.I would suggest every one to Constantly monitor market and your skill sets and see how you can add value to it. Comfort zone can kill your career. Have a clear goal of what you want and decide on the milestones to decide on how to shape this . At the same time, don’t be so rigid with what you have in your mind. Take up challenges as and when they come and see how you can make the best use of it.

Hope my 2nd post on Career path makes more sense just the way 1st post did :)

Please feel free to drop in your comments, Your questions and experience can help me to give more clarity to the readers to choose the BA career and decide up on the future career milestones and see themselves adding value !!

Also Read ::

Business Analyst Competency Score

2009-03-02T04:47:00.000-08:00

Competency Score to check how good Business Analyst you are.

No matter if you are budding BA or a Seasoned Business Analyst this Score will help you to see where you stand !!

Download this sheet/follow this url for more details -
http://www.esnips.com/doc/f34cde17-dc8c-4943-8693-a6543011a511/BA-Competency-Score

Or
http://www.esnips.com/web/BusinessAnalystStuff

BA Competency Scor...

Hosted by eSnips

Well Comments are always welcome and appreciated :)

Business Analyst - Responsibilities across different Organizations.

2009-02-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

There are 4 major type of organisations where a BA can see himself working . This matrix should help you to understand how this different organisations can help you build your expertise in terms of roles & responsibilities and add Domain knowledge.

Drop in your comments, views, queries on the same.

Also read ::

Business Analyst Responsibilities in a Nut Shell

2009-02-16T03:25:00.000-08:00

Click on the pic for a better view.

The idea behind writing this post was to demonstrate the role of a BA through visuals to make this role understand in a simpler way.

Not taking much of your time, generally a BA is found working at 2 places

One at Clients place (incase if represents the IT organisation/ IT dept of the Client Organisation) where the Business Users Reside
And second is at IT Organization where the IT team is working ( can be at offshore )

Remember there can be two different BA's at the above mentioned 2 places. Although there is no hard and fast rule that the same BA has to represent at both the phases, there might be a team of BA's (for Eg; 2 to 3 ) for a particular project.

In the Requirements phase: A BA responsibility is to interview the business users to define scope and capture high level business requirements. To make this happen a BA can make use of different techniques.

For Eg: You go to a Manufacturing Co. where in they wish to implement a ERP (obviously with many customisation to suit the client needs) in that case you will like to discuss with all business users and help them identify what they require from their software , just to make their life easy !!

In the above case a BA will use some of the techniques like Conducting JAD Sesssion, Surveying , Interviewing the business users.

Once the high level Business Requirements are captured, The Managers, BA's and Technical Architect Guys from Software / IT Project team will come up with highlevel estimations and project timelines to meet this requirement.

Once agreed on the above estimations and timelines a BA would move in to the functional phase, here the BA would be challenged to capture or translate highlevel Business Requirements to detailed level functional and non functional requirements.

A BA is a sole owner of the requirement and has to keep a tab on the requirements. He has to maintain a tracebility matrix to map where each Business Req. is mapped to Functional Req. and where each functional Req. is captured. A Test manager has to map each Test case for each functional Req. in the same matrix.

BA is also required to review & validate the Functional requirements,Test cases, Test Results to check the status of the requirements. BA also has to manage Change request and come up with impact analysis and estimates/timelines for the same.

Once the Software is ready to be given to customer BA has to do a series of testing to see whether the requirements are incorporated in the software or not and then BA has to support the UAT phase.
In UAT the clients Test team/ Business Users will test the product and any issues/concerns raised by them has to be supported by a BA.

There are many more things a BA does however to keep this article very simpler i didn't touch the other areas.

Hope this article with the above visuals help you to understand the BA role!!

CAREER TRACK FOR BUSINESS ANALYST

2009-01-15T03:18:00.000-08:00

Last week I received a call from a Recruitment team of an IT Company who specializes in Power, Utility domain. This person was trying to convince me to look at the positive sides of Power, Utility, and Gas domain even during the recession time. He was pitching it so hard and explaining me you as a BA will be doing the same thing and telling me that any organization you go you would be doing the same work and holding similar responsibilities. In fact, he was right, as a Business Analyst we all are supposed to do the same work over a period of time, however what should matter is as you spend some considerable amount of time in BA Role what would differentiate one with other is that how much domain knowledge & expertise you bring to the table.

Imagine these roles played by two different BA’s let’s say for a period of 3-5 years.

BA -1 – Has done some significant work of IT – BA role in areas of Banking, Logistics, Retail, and CRM.

BA -2 – Has done some significant work in areas of Retail & Corporate banking, Equity &Derivatives market, Insurance, Wealth Management.

At the end of 5 years I believe BA -1 can call himself as a Jack of all Trades. But I see a shortfall in the kind of work; he would continue doing same work even after having so much of experience.

On other hand BA -2 will call himself as Smart BA exposed to Banking & Financial Services domain who can easily move in to Subject Matter Expert (SME) role, and going forward would look for Business Process Management Consultant role.

“ Remember BA’s career is like a Rail Track which has two rails running parallelly without which it cannot reach its next destination or Career milestone.”

One rail is like your Responsibilities and the other rail is your Domain understanding and Knowledge which you add over a period of time.

Both Skills sets taken together which act as a superpower which going further would help you to take more challenging assignments in areas of Business Process Improvement, Consulting, Sales etc.

Also Read :
Business Analyst Resources all under one roof
Certifications for Business Analyst

Useful templates for Business Analysts

2008-10-11T01:02:00.000-07:00

Vision and Scope Document http://www.processimpact.com/process_assets/vision_and_scope.doc
Requirement Specification -http://dafis.ucdavis.edu/updates/devel_updates/AREnhancements/EnhancementSpecs/Invoice%20Item%20Requirements.doc
Requirements Template - http://www.businessanalystsolutions.com/requirements_template.htm
Software Requirements Specification - www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~carette/SE3M04/2003/files/srs_template.doc
Software Requirements Document - http://web.mit.edu/ssit/cis/CISRequirements.html
Use Case Template -http://www.bredemeyer.com/pdf_files/use_case.pdf
Use Cases Tips -http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-tip-essentialuse.html
Standards Gap and Overlap Analysis - http://publicaa.ansi.org/sites/apdl/Documents/Standards%20Activities/Healthcare%20Informatics%20Technology%20Standards%20Panel/Technical%20Committees/Template_for_Gap_Analysis_v7.doc

Sample UseCase for capturing a functionality on Internet Banking site

2008-08-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

This post is to show how a USE CASE will look when you try capturing functional aspects of a internet banking site.

Scenario:: I used an example of HDFC Internet banking site, which displays account summary on welcome page or as a first page once the valid user logins to the system.

Use Case Number: Usecase_1

Use Case Name: Login in to the internet banking site

Description: The following use case illustrates the login process in to the internet banking site.

Actor: Bank Customer(s)

Pre condition:

Enter valid URL in the browser address bar.
Login Page should be displayed.

Normal Flow:

User will enter valid username.
User will enter valid password.
User will click on the login/submit button.
Valid user welcome page will appear with the following data.

Full name of the user.
Login time along with last login time.
Welcome Message.
Account summary information.

· The account summary information will contain Account Number, Branch, and Name of the customer, Currency Type, Available balance and mini statement hyperlink. (Following data will be populated directly from the available persistent storage.)

Post condition: None

Exceptions:

1. User (s) will enter invalid user name and password.

Alternative Steps:

1. User will be notified with the Invalid user name and password message.

2. Repeat Steps from Normal flow.

BA Career Queries - for Developers, QA, MBA's

2008-07-14T03:29:00.000-07:00

Business Analyst role is the challenging role which requires some special skill sets. There is no course so far which teaches you the responsibilities which a BA would do.
Business Analyst role is offered to those people who possess those skill sets which they get exposed in their profession. I will explain this by giving examples.

1. Developer - A Fresh college passout gets his first job in some MNC . He is being taught some development language and is put in some client project. However for any developer to move in to a BA role either needs good domain knowledge along with responsibilites played by BA. However the shortfall which is see here is that a developer is exposed only to certain portion of the application/product/ in the project as his focus is more on development. He is not aware about the other features on that application.

Advice:: Developers/Application Programmers are adviced to do a little bit of homework in this , stay in the project for around 2 years, get exposed to the requirements, put some extra effort in going throug Functional specificationss, business specifications , do some testing to explore the application and learn from your peers and existing BA's and most important things is to get exposed to BA responsibilities.

2. QA - QA specialist is one person who has a very good chance to move into Business Analyst role, infact whenever a candidate who gets recruited from B-school for BA position is being exposed to do Testing initially so that he/she understand the product/application and mapping the functional docs with the application.

Advice:: QA's needs to learn perparing test scripts, test plans, client interaction and try to move into BA role with solid domain and application understanding.

For Developres/QA's would suggest to do some certifications to gain theoritical understanding of domain.

3. MBA's - Professionals from diversified industries stand a good chance as they bring the domain experience along with them. For example a fresh MBA student joins a bank works for 2-3 years gets exposed to banking operations like deposits, loans etc. It makes sense for the IT companies to recruit him and require very less effort in grooming him.

Advice :: professionals with experience are encourage to learn the best practices of requirement gathering, learn testing concepts ,preparing test plans, gap analysis etc.

Fresh MBA's - will need to put in lot of efforts and the co. would take their time to put in to actual BA role. Mean while would suggest you to follow the same advice as i gave for professionals and do some certifications to make your candidature strong for BA Role.

Also Read :: Role of a Business Analyst

Readers are encouraged to raise their queries, concerns and comments on the same .

Certifications for Business Analyst

2008-07-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

Although responsibilities of a Business Analyst are Bread & Butter for him however to remain competitive one has to upgrade his knowledge by mode of reading, surfing and by certifications.

Certifications from India

I would add some certifications mostly from India which might not be the exact one for you but would definitely help you to gain domain knowledge.

Certications from Banking & Financial Services domain

1. Banking - BA's who wish to make their Careers in Banking domain can go for Diploma in Banking & Finance from IIBF (http://www.iibf.org.in)

--Its a sixth month correspondence diploma program which talks almost every possible thing associated with banking world. Eg:operations, Products, participants, tehcnology, Accounting concepts & Regualations

2. Mutual Funds - People interested in this domain can go for Certification started by Association of mutual funds in india in collaboration with NSE.

visit-- http://amfi-certification.blogspot.com for more details

3. Capital Markets & Investment Banking - For correspondence the best certification available are from NSE called as NCFM (http://www.ncfm-india.com)

NCFM currently tests expertise in the following modules:

People from Mumbai can enrol Certifications provided by Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)

Role of a Business Analyst

2008-06-13T04:23:00.000-07:00

From SriRams Thread from Business Analyst Community on Orkut ::

A BA role is very crucial and need lots of expertise in

-> Study the As Is Business processes
-> Propose the change or reengineering of the As Is Business processes if need be.
-> Study the Individual systems in the business processes.
-> Understanding the Business requirements.
-> propose high level solution for those requirements
-> Build the project scope
-> gather the business requirements and capture them using UML Standard Use cases and model the business process using activity diagrams which are Object oriented equivalents of flow charts.
-> Discuss with project tech lead and Prepare high level design documents.
-> Help project team prepare detailed level design documents.
-> Prepare Functional Specification document.
-> Prepare System Specification documents with the help of technical lead of the project.
-> Prepare Interface and other architectural documents needed for project.
-> Act as a point of contact for business users from project team.
-> Act as a domain expert and help project team understand the business requirements and clarify all their doubts as and when needed.
-> Act as a catalyst and middleman in between both business users and the project team.
-> Help project team and the testing team by doing functionality testing post configuration / development stage.
-> Help in product deployment at client location

This is just an overview of what a BA does and his responsibilities are.
The BA is a backbone for every project and he plays a pivotal role in a project as he can either make or break the project.

Project Deliverables Checklist:-

-> In Scope / Out Scope Document
-> SLA (If required)
-> Updated Change Request Document (On need basis)
-> Business Study Report
-> Project Plan
-> Security Plan
-> Disaster recovery, Backup strategy & Plan
-> Business functions and functionality matrix
-> Data dictionary of business data elements and schema
-> Use cases (UML)
-> Business Process Design (e.g. Activity/ Sequence diagrams)
-> GAP Analysis (If Enhancement Project)
-> System Understanding & Applicability document
-> Feasibility Report
-> High Level Designs
-> Technical/Detail Level Designs and Architecture
-> Security and Reliability Architecture and Technical Definitions
-> Quality Standards
-> Quality Plan (Given Intervals)
-> Detailed Functional Specifications
-> Detailed System Specifications and Interfaces
-> Message formats
-> Operational Proof of Concept
-> Case study on Issue's during Development stage
-> Developed Product
-> Case study on testing phase
-> Filled in Test cases
-> Test Results (Unit testing/ SIT etc...)
-> Reference Implementation and starter kit for selected platform
-> User manuals
-> Findings and recommendation reports

This is the general checklist and you may omit/add few more points according to the client’s interest and need.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Geetesh : I have been on one of the shortest clients assignments as part of pre sales underwhich i did Study "AS IS" System followed by interviewing business users. And the approach which Sri Ram have mentioned above, i could relate it very well now... now the role is very clear to me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Business Analyst Career Path

2008-06-13T01:29:00.001-07:00

Click on the image for a better view

Now Available Business Analyst Careerpath 2.0

Also Read :: Career Track for Business Analyst

This article would definitely raise eyebrows of BA’s who are already in the industry and will have different opinions on it. However the idea behind writing the article is to make aware the BA’s and BA’s aspirants at what are the possible milestones to be achieved while progressing in your career ladder.

When I shared this image with my fellow colleagues and dear friends who are BA’s they had a different opinions altogether which helped me to rethink and refine it. Some of them also insisted to add Project management as one of the milestones but some how I didn’t agree with this. The reason I believe is that a BA always work independently in the assignments and is just a facilitator/mentor to the Project team, he can give directions how the things should move but actual project management is done by a Project Manager who specializes in work allocation, setting deadlines, monitoring, people management etc. This is something I do not think would go along with BA as he himself has many responsibilities to be carried. But in US they have a dedicated BA manager whose job is to mentor and allocate work to their BA’s. And in India this is generally done by Delivery manager.

This slightly went out of the topic, now I will start touching up on each Rounded Rectangle box which you see in the image (above).

MBA’s – A Fresh MBA Pass out with or without prior experience are being hired these days for the Role of a BA from B-Schools. They are easy to be groomed in lines of domain, application/product, a complete SDLC cycle and most importantly to build patience :-) for a long one year. For Most of the year they are even asked to do testing and this makes sense. You can’t gather requirements if you have no clarity on how a product comes to shape. And for testing looking at requirements doc is important and that’s where a BA starts learning about the contents of Business Requirement Specification (BRS), Software/Functional Requirement Specification (SRS/FRS) and Functional Design Document (FDD).

Developers/Testers- Tired of coding and testing the product/application and looking for a role shift you do stand a good chance to move, infact testers can move quickly in BA stream as they understand the application better than anybody else. The best part of a Developer/Tester is that they bring along with them the fantastic knowledge of SDLC. This definitely helps them for Effort estimation, test cases, test plan etc which is required in BA role.

IT Business Analyst – Finally you got what you wanted, moving in to BA role. I have personally seen many people in IT industry that are desperate to move in to BA role. Ask them why you want to move? One answer you will get I don’t want to do this monotonous job of coding/testing/Analytics I can’t do this and most important I don’t want to do this. BA gives challenging work requirement gathering and all… well that’s all true but it’s also important that you understand the importance of this role the responsibilities played by BA and plan your career accordingly. These decisions should be taken wisely by understanding the pros and cons of the career. Well now coming to the point for which I started this blog. I will try to touch up on each role which you “can” perform while moving in your career.

Mean while read the responsibilities played by a BA.

Study the As Is Business processes
Propose the change or reengineering of the As Is Business processes if need be.
Study the Individual systems in the business processes
Build the project scope
Understanding the Business requirements.
propose high level solution for those requirements
Gather the business requirements and capture those using UML Standard Use cases and model the business process using activity diagrams which are object oriented equivalents of flow charts.
Discuss with project tech lead and Prepare high level design documents.
Help project team prepare detailed level design documents.
Prepare Functional Specification document.
Prepare System Specification documents with the help of technical lead of the project.
Prepare Interface and other architectural documents needed for project.
Act as a point of contact for business users from project team.
Act as a domain expert and help project team understand the business requirements and clarify all their doubts as and when needed.
Act as a catalyst and middleman in between both business users and the project team.
Help project team and the testing team by doing functionality testing post configuration / development stage.

Also Read :: Business Analyst Responsibility Matrix

Sr/Lead BA- As your progress in your career, responsibilities here would be more or like same as you would have started as a fresh BA, however what you should gain here is domain expertise to distinguish yourself with other BA’s .You are expected to do your assignments more smartly and effectively, a BA would also get involved in pre sales giving valuable inputs to Sales team. From here some may also move to some challenging roles like Sales/BD as you will have good knowledge of industry, the markets, kind of applications built and used by businesses and the potential clients.

SME/Business Process Consultant – with vast knowledge on a single domain over a period of time with lead you to take up Subject Matter Expert (SME) role. This role would deal with clients to understand their area of business and giving valuable inputs to client as well as to the self organization for making decisions. Or further you can move to Process consultant role where in you would be responsible for Business Process Re-Engineering i.e. to identify and analyze current business and propose changes which would benefit the organization in performing their operations, tasks etc in a given cost without compromising on quality

Business Account Manager – You have done lot of work for the client representing your current IT organization. Now you have perfect knowledge of IT organization side, now it makes sense if you move to clients place and act as Vendor evaluator and selector which would make use of these technologies for the respective business operations. This way you will be able to select correct software application with respect to the requirements by business, efforts involved for building/customizing the software, Probable cost which would help senior management to prepare the budget and timelines for the product and at the end evaluating and selecting a vendor to complete the project.

Consulting - With a career span of 15 years seeing both side of the world i.e. IT organization (Vendor) and Client (Business), having solid knowledge of diversified roles played over a period of time, you can see your self as a “Guru” and you can take up consulting role either independently or by joining big consulting firms like Mckinsey, PWC , etc .

From here there would be another journey, with different milestones, challenges which is waiting for you….:)

Will keep adding new points to this article as an when I get more inputs. Mean while would appreciate if you can come up with your views, queries, opinions on the same.

Also See BA Careerpath2.0

Also ChecK ::

Role of a Business Analyst

2008-06-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

A "Business Analyst" (BA) is a role that can mean different things to different people. In some companies, the BA plays a technical role with very little business knowledge; while in other companies, the BA has a full understanding of the business with very little knowledge of the IT systems and architecture.

In today's times - the BA has come to become a person of great value to an organization, and who is a generalist capable of functioning competently in diverse roles. Typically, these people have a broad educational background and a diverse skill set with a wide range of work experience in different jobs and industries. In essence, they are able to visualize the "big picture" - that is - understand the business from different perspectives, as well as the technology side of what can be effectively used to improve the business.

The Business Analyst Skills in a broad perspective comprises of the person being a Business Planner, Systems Analyst, Project Manager, Subject Area Expert, Organization Analyst, Financial Analyst, Technology Architect, Data Analyst, Application Analyst, Application Designer, and Process Analyst.

As we drill down deeper into the specific roles of a BA and understand the essential skills required for each of the roles, it would give a clear picture.

The major roles of a BA, as defined by certification experts are:-

1. Define and Scope Business Areas

The BA must be sure that the project scope is clear and complete before the start of detailed requirements gathering. The BA may be given the scope pre-defined by the project sponsor or may be responsible for defining and documenting the scope as part of the requirements gathering task.

Defining and documenting the project scope requires the BA to understand why the project has been initiated, and the objectives of the project. An important contribution of the BA to the project is the analyzing of the business problem without "jumping" to a solution.

In addition, a complete project scope will name and define all the stakeholders that will be involved with the project, including people, systems, internal departments, and external organizations.

Other important components of the project scope documentation include the project viewpoint, project assumptions, and business risks. These components give the BA the information necessary to prioritize and focus the requirements gathering.

Finally the project scope should include a high-level description of the business processes. It may also include a list of items that specifically will not be included in the scope. This gives the entire project team a complete understanding of the work that the BA will be doing during the detailed requirements gathering phase.

One additional task required of the BA, is the creation of an organized system for maintaining project information. A glossary should be started along with a filing system for maintaining all of the information that will be gathered during the project.

Essential Skills Required:

1. Facilitation skills to bring multiple groups together to scope project and get consensus
2. Ability to document the project scope using business terminology
3. Project scope documentation techniques

2. Elicit Requirements

The most important task of a BA is to gather the detailed requirements that clearly and completely define the project. We use the word gather because the BA must be sure to ask the right questions of the right people to gather accurate requirements. Further, we use the word elicit, since the BA must be able to get people to say all that they have to and not leave anything as assumptions.

It is critical that the BA initially gathers Business Requirements and completely understand the business needs before defining a software solution.

The BA must assess the type of project, the people involved, and the volume of information required; and then determine how and where to find the requirements. BAs have a variety of techniques available to them including interviews, facilitated information gathering sessions, surveys, questionnaires, observation, and existing documentation from which to choose. In addition, the BA will often have many people with whom to talk and several existing automated systems about which to learn.

Gathering complete, detailed requirements is an iterative process that involves the BA asking questions, pondering answers, asking follow-up questions, and bringing divergent opinions to consensus. It also involves prioritizing the requirements to assure that the most critical issues are addressed by the project solution.

Essential Skills Required:

1. Asking the right questions
2. Active listening
3. Interviewing techniques
4. Facilitation techniques
5. Documentation
6. Ability to categorize requirements

3. Analyze and Document Requirements

Requirements are analyzed and documented using an iterative approach. As each of the requirements is documented, additional questions will arise requiring the analyst to probe deeper. There are many different approaches to documenting requirements. The BA is responsible for following their organization's standard documentation format or for creating their own. When developing a documentation format, the BA must consider the best format for communicating with the information technology team and the best format for communicating with the business area experts. Both groups must be able to read and review the document and clearly understand the requirements. Some requirements are more appropriately documented in textual descriptions, others in diagrams or graphical displays. The BA must also determine the appropriate level of detail for the documentation.

Ideally, the entire organization uses a consistent documentation format and approach. This makes the review process easier for people working on multiple projects. It also allows the organization to constantly improve the format as quality enhancements are discovered. The BA is often the person leading the development and maintaining the standard documentation format.

Typically there are many requirements. To organize them and make them easy to review, they are divided into categories or groupings. It may be good to categorize requirements into Business, Functional, and Technical.

Essential Skills Required:

1. Analysis Skills
2. Understand the system development methodology
3. Utilize modelling techniques
4. Categorization skills
5. Prototype user interfaces
6. Develop a textual template for requirements

4. Communicate Requirements

The BA should be the best communicator on the project team. The role is to act as a liaison between the business area experts and the technical team. This role requires the BA to "speak" both languages. The BA must also work very closely with the Project Manager to ensure that the project plan is adhered to and scope creeps / changes are approved and documented.

As the requirements documentation is being created, the BA will conduct informal and formal requirements reviews. These review sessions increase the quality of the document by finding missing or unclear requirements. It is important that the information is presented to the business and technical audiences in a manner that is most appropriate for their understanding. Summaries of the requirements or various graphical representations may be appropriate as part of the reviews. Understanding your audience is critical to the successful communication of the requirements.

Essential Skills Required:

1. Run effective meetings
2. Active listening skills
3. Precision questioning techniques
4. Conduct formal and informal presentations
5. Write clear emails, memos, and status reports
6. Conduct a comprehensive requirements review
7. Change management
8. Write review summaries

5. Identify Solution

The BA should work closely with the Business Area Experts to make a recommendation for a solution and work with the technical team to design it. This recommendation may include software changes to existing systems, new software, procedural or workflow changes, or some combination of the above. If software automation is part of the solution, the BA should assist with the screen design, report design, and all user interface issues by providing detailed functional requirements.

If a software package is going to be purchased, the BA works with the Business Area Experts, IT personnel, and the potential vendors to discuss the requirements and verify that the package selected will meet the needs. The BA may also be responsible for writing the Request for Proposal (RFP). Detailed business and functional requirements should be completed to accurately reflect the needs for the software and a thorough review should be conducted.

Essential Skills Required:

1. High level understanding of the software design
2. Ability to evaluate vendor software packages
3. Ability to estimate solution costs and benefits and build a business case for implementation

6.Verify Solution meets the Requirements

The BA should remain involved in the project even after the technical team takes over. The BA reviews the technical designs proposed by the design team for usability issues and to assure that the requirements are being satisfied. Once the solution is developed into software, the BA is uniquely qualified to assess the software and determine how well it meets the original project objectives.

The BA should work closely with the Quality Assurance team and to assist with the entire testing process. Testing is based on requirements, so the BA's intimate knowledge of the requirements allows accurate design of test cases. If there is no Quality Assurance team available, the BA can still assist with User Acceptance testing, the time when the Business Area Experts are asked to approve the software for implementation. As the software is tested, the BA ensures that it is clearly documented and reports defects and variances from requirements.

Essential Skills Required:

1. Basic understanding of system design concepts
2. Knowledge of software usability principles
3. Understanding of testing principles
4. Ability to write and review test cases

Courtesy : Business Gyan

Also Read ::

Business Analyst - Career Questions

2008-06-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

Query 1

Transition from programmer/tester to BA role

Recently i got a mail from member of Business Analyst community on orkut. He wanted to pursue his career in a Business Analyst role.

Roles and Responsibilities which he was performing

1. Gathering functional requirements.
2. Preparing Functional Specifications.
3. Initiate kickoff meeting to communicate requirement to the Development team.
4. Communicate with User to resolving requirement issue for Dev team.
5. Preparing Test Plan.
6. Processing change requests
7. Designing and/or reviewing test cases
8. Executing test scripts.
9. Signing off application after QA for Release.

He is a engineer
Queries:

1. What are the Things missing in my current roles and responsibilities, which I can work out to Excel in field of Business Analysis?
2. Are there any training programmes (Business Analysis/Financial Trainings) which can help me to achieve stated goal?

Could you please guide me to pursue my Career in BA?

Hopefully this should make clear most of your doubts(my ans)
1. You can be lucky if you have a MBA degree, however this doesn't stop BE's who are in this industry to move in to Business Analyst role.
2. People who wish to migrate from a development role need to posses the responsibilities as mentioned above excluding 8th point that is "Executing test scripts"
This reflects more like a Hardcore Testing person.
3. The only difference you can make here is by having domain knowledge which in general most of the developers or even Project manager don't have... so would suggest you guys to stick to a domain (like Banking, Insurance etc) get as many certifications on the same.
4. Even when you move to different project for anyother role then see to it that you don't loose out on domain. Stick to it and learn as much as you can.
5. Try to get in to this role in your existing company .. work for sometime on the project , try to get exposed to the responsibilities as mentioned above..
6. And most important thing ..when you thinking of shifting to another co. in a BA role. emphasize on the designation because Business Analyst designation carries a a lot of weightage

Please leave your queries on this blog/mail me .. will try my best to answer those.

Kindly ignore spelling mistakes (if found any)

Business Analyst Resources all under one roof

2008-06-12T02:58:00.000-07:00

Business Analyst Resources all under one roof

Some management & technical books

Writing Effective Use Cases - a must 4 Business Analyst
UML for IT Business Analyst
Managers-book-on-software-development - must for all MBA's working in Software Industry
Business Analyst - ebook - Must do read..!!
What is UML ?
Writing Good usecases (from IBM Site)
Documents Caputred during a SDLC Cycle

Master Link http://www.esnips.com/_t_/business+analyst

From Infosys -

Sample Business Analyst CV

Some useful Links on Business Analyst

Some fantastic presentation on Business Analyst

Effective User Acceptance Testing
Presenting Requirements in a Consistent and Cohesive Manner
Modeling Scope from the Business Analyst's Perspective
Facilitating Requirements: Gathering Requirements in a Group Setting
Why Does a Project Need a Project Manager and a Business Analyst?
Demystifying Business Use Cases
How Does a Requirements Package Vary from Project to Project
Deconstructing Your Requirements Template to Optimize Traceability
Emerging Role of the Business Analyst
How Does a Requirements Package Vary from Project to Project
Resurrecting the SDLC
Why is Data Important to Business Analysis

all this available on http://www.b2ttraining.com/downloads/

************************

Preface

2008-06-12T02:15:00.000-07:00

This is a very strange introduction but i couldn't stop my self from expressing my emotions.

This is the 2nd time am launching this site. Now you may think what happened to the earlier one ?
Well thats what am about the tell you . The earlier site was marked as SPAM blog by Google robots. I tried contacting them explaining about the nature of the blog, but was of no use.

So i thought i should share this with the readers and to make their eyes open w.r.to Googles services. Atlast you can't even rely on Google :(

Now coming to Preface of this blog

This blog is intended to bring like minded people from Business Analyst profession. Even People interested in this role who may be new are interested to share their opinions and queries for the same.

forum

2007-05-22T04:46:00.000-07:00

BAWorld - Q&A